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Ferguson DOJ Report

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pcuser
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29 Mar 2015, 12:57 pm

Dox47 wrote:
The racism is incidental here, the major takeaway is that an entire local government essentially existed for no other reason than to sustain itself at the expense of its citizens, through a byzantine system of fines and regulations with which to fine them. The citizens of Ferguson, along with those of many of the other municipalities in the surrounding, receive little to no benefit from their local government, but at considerable cost that is disproportionately born out by the lower classes. Basically, these cities were gangster states operating as kleptocracies, and I think that's someone that everyone, regardless of ideology, should be against.

If racism is incidental here, why haven't whites been targeted instead of blacks? Where in this country do we see this going in the opposite direction???



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29 Mar 2015, 1:24 pm

pcuser wrote:
Dox47 wrote:
The racism is incidental here, the major takeaway is that an entire local government essentially existed for no other reason than to sustain itself at the expense of its citizens, through a byzantine system of fines and regulations with which to fine them. The citizens of Ferguson, along with those of many of the other municipalities in the surrounding, receive little to no benefit from their local government, but at considerable cost that is disproportionately born out by the lower classes. Basically, these cities were gangster states operating as kleptocracies, and I think that's someone that everyone, regardless of ideology, should be against.

If racism is incidental here, why haven't whites been targeted instead of blacks? Where in this country do we see this going in the opposite direction???


They weren't the only ones being hit with fines:

DOJ wrote:
A 90-year-old man had a warrant issued for his arrest after he failed to timely pay the five citations FPD issued to him during a single traffic stop in 2013. An 83-year-old man had a warrant issued against him when he failed to timely resolve his Derelict Auto violation. A 67-year-old woman told us she was stopped and arrested by a Ferguson police officer for an outstanding warrant for failure to pay a trash-removal citation. She did not know about the warrant until her arrest, and the court ultimately charged her $1,000 in fines, which she continues to pay off in $100 monthly increments despite being on a limited, fixed income. We have heard similar stories from dozens of other individuals and have reviewed court records documenting many additional instances of similarly harsh penalties, often for relatively minor violations.


All of the other examples list a race in support of the DOJ's conclusion; it's safe to assume that the DOJ would have listed a race in these cases as well it helped their case.

If there's a difference in the average ages of the white and black populations (for example, if white flight were biased toward younger people), it would probably make the racial disparity look worse than it really is [2], although I have no reason to doubt that it's bad.



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29 Mar 2015, 5:03 pm

Educratic...?


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29 Mar 2015, 7:05 pm

Educratic: http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/saunders/ ... 318078.php



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29 Mar 2015, 7:20 pm

Some facts about the Saint Paul case that I linked to (which I just realized didn't show up in the article):

A black man was sitting in a public area in a St. Paul skyway, waiting to pick up his kids at daycare. A security guard told him to leave, which he understandably declined to do. Three police came to question him. He refused to tell them who he was, since he'd done nothing wrong or suspicious. They arrested him, and used a stun gun in the process. He claims that he didn't physically resist. I can't tell if he did from the video, but the cops were already two steps over the line as far as I'm concerned.

Watch it.



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29 Mar 2015, 7:42 pm

NobodyKnows wrote:
Educratic: http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/saunders/ ... 318078.php


Sounds like just another term the far right uses to beat educators over the head with, especially if they don't lean to the political right. Seriously, how many math teachers - or in this case, those accused of being educrats - actually have their students write poems about math?


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29 Mar 2015, 8:31 pm

Kraichgauer wrote:
NobodyKnows wrote:
Educratic: http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/saunders/ ... 318078.php


Sounds like just another term the far right uses to beat educators over the head with, especially if they don't lean to the political right. Seriously, how many math teachers - or in this case, those accused of being educrats - actually have their students write poems about math?

I didn't have to endure that, but it would have been a step up from what I did have: My 6th hour science class was so unruly that we were lucky to have 15 minutes of instruction once the teacher got the class to settle down. I'm not exaggerating even slightly. I should have written "if the teacher got the class to settle down." We never did any labs during that entire year.

Being vegetarian, I'm obviously not moved by Saunders' last paragraph, but she's right that a lot of Democrats love schools and teachers more than they love kids. When I was working as a Democratic organizer in Minneapolis, I attended an event where one volunteer who was a teacher droned on for an hour about how she supported a longer school year in principle, but wanted to make sure that the teachers got paid more for the extra work. One topic that didn't come up was whether the students would actually benefit. When they did talk about kids, it was always conspicuous lip-service, completely lacking emotional emphases or thoughtfulness.



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29 Mar 2015, 10:17 pm

NobodyKnows wrote:
Kraichgauer wrote:
NobodyKnows wrote:
Educratic: http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/saunders/ ... 318078.php


Sounds like just another term the far right uses to beat educators over the head with, especially if they don't lean to the political right. Seriously, how many math teachers - or in this case, those accused of being educrats - actually have their students write poems about math?

I didn't have to endure that, but it would have been a step up from what I did have: My 6th hour science class was so unruly that we were lucky to have 15 minutes of instruction once the teacher got the class to settle down. I'm not exaggerating even slightly. I should have written "if the teacher got the class to settle down." We never did any labs during that entire year.

Being vegetarian, I'm obviously not moved by Saunders' last paragraph, but she's right that a lot of Democrats love schools and teachers more than they love kids. When I was working as a Democratic organizer in Minneapolis, I attended an event where one volunteer who was a teacher droned on for an hour about how she supported a longer school year in principle, but wanted to make sure that the teachers got paid more for the extra work. One topic that didn't come up was whether the students would actually benefit. When they did talk about kids, it was always conspicuous lip-service, completely lacking emotional emphases or thoughtfulness.


To be sure, there are too many bad teachers out there whose main concern is not their students. Then again, as the teaching profession pays so little, it's not surprising that the best and brightest aren't always drawn to that field. Perhaps a pay hike would attract a better class of teachers.


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29 Mar 2015, 10:44 pm

pcuser wrote:
If racism is incidental here, why haven't whites been targeted instead of blacks? Where in this country do we see this going in the opposite direction???


Because the goal was not to screw over black people per se, but rather to fund the local government through organized theft, which disproportionately effected the black population who are overrepresented amongst the poor being victimized. The police force doing the dirty work on the ground was racially integrated, this was about money first, the racism was only a side effect.


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29 Mar 2015, 11:11 pm

Kraichgauer wrote:
NobodyKnows wrote:
Educratic: http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/saunders/ ... 318078.php


Sounds like just another term the far right uses to beat educators over the head with, especially if they don't lean to the political right. Seriously, how many math teachers - or in this case, those accused of being educrats - actually have their students write poems about math?


So now you're trying to derail this thread, whose participants seem to be going apolitical so far, with cheap little jabs at the right. :roll: :roll:


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29 Mar 2015, 11:22 pm

Kraichgauer wrote:
Perhaps a pay hike would attract a better class of teachers.


Their pay is low, but they get a pension, and only work only about seven months per year.

Recent teacher graduates have to leave the state, because they cannot find work in my state. It is too sweet of a job.

Some politicians in my state are trying to end pensions and give teachers a 401k.



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29 Mar 2015, 11:39 pm

LoveNotHate wrote:
Kraichgauer wrote:
Perhaps a pay hike would attract a better class of teachers.


Their pay is low, but they get a pension, and only work only about seven months per year.

Recent teacher graduates have to leave the state, because they cannot find work in my state. It is too sweet of a job.

Some politicians in my state are trying to end pensions and give teachers a 401k.


I'd rather work year round for good pay and benefits.


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30 Mar 2015, 12:02 am

LoveNotHate wrote:
Kraichgauer wrote:
Perhaps a pay hike would attract a better class of teachers.


Their pay is low, but they get a pension, and only work only about seven months per year.

Recent teacher graduates have to leave the state, because they cannot find work in my state. It is too sweet of a job.

Some politicians in my state are trying to end pensions and give teachers a 401k.


It might be like that in your state, I am guessing you have some good unions, but in my state, quite the opposite. Teachers are the lowest paid in the region thus, there's a teacher shortage. Politicians and the state superintendent are scrambling to figure out ways to get more teachers but there's no way I would ever be a teacher in this state and until things get a lot better, I would encourage really good teachers to go where they will be greatly appreciated and that means leaving the state in many instances.

Superintendent was on television explaining how Chipotle Grill pays more than the state does first year teachers and she had a problem with that fact and blamed the teacher shortage on it. She said the state is losing teachers to Chipotle Grill.



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30 Mar 2015, 2:16 am

ooOoOoOAnaOoOoOoo wrote:
LoveNotHate wrote:
Kraichgauer wrote:
Perhaps a pay hike would attract a better class of teachers.


Their pay is low, but they get a pension, and only work only about seven months per year.

Recent teacher graduates have to leave the state, because they cannot find work in my state. It is too sweet of a job.

Some politicians in my state are trying to end pensions and give teachers a 401k.


It might be like that in your state, I am guessing you have some good unions, but in my state, quite the opposite. Teachers are the lowest paid in the region thus, there's a teacher shortage. Politicians and the state superintendent are scrambling to figure out ways to get more teachers but there's no way I would ever be a teacher in this state and until things get a lot better, I would encourage really good teachers to go where they will be greatly appreciated and that means leaving the state in many instances.

Superintendent was on television explaining how Chipotle Grill pays more than the state does first year teachers and she had a problem with that fact and blamed the teacher shortage on it. She said the state is losing teachers to Chipotle Grill.


Yes, I live in Michigan which historically has been a strong pro-union state with the UAW.

I know of cities nearby where the public servants get a pension of 10% greater than the highest earned salary. In one city, this caused an uproar as it was reported that fire fighters were retiring and getting a pension for 100k / year for life at age 50ish. That is like saving up a 4 million dollar annuity.

My mom retired as a slightly above minimum wage bus driver and gets 25k/year for life. That is like having a 1 million dollar annuity in the bank.



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30 Mar 2015, 3:10 am

Im glad I live in California Missouri sucks and is boring so Ferguson has nothing to do with where I live its a town in a country bumkin redneck infested state with the education of that of the 1950s and bible thumping beliefs!


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30 Mar 2015, 6:07 am

NobodyKnows wrote:
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NobodyKnows wrote:
I have one problem with the report: Why is it a justice issue when blacks are 50% more likely be the subject of an arrest warrant, but not a justice issue when men are 5,000% more likely to be on death row? [1]

You can claim that men are more violent, but the same claim could be made about blacks [2] [3].

You could claim that men aren't disadvantaged relative to women in the way that blacks are disadvantaged relative to whites, but all members of the military in the last three decades (at least) were fingerprinted. That makes it easier to link them to crimes, and they're mostly men [4].

I'm asking for one thing: Don't pretend to be shocked, shocked when there's racial inequality in enforcement, and then yawn when there's gender inequality.

Oh look, a white man wants to make this about him...

Yes, there's probably a bias against men in the legal system. Yes, that's a bad thing. It's also not what this discussion is about.


Grow up.

Firstly, the bias against men falls even more heavily on black men. (They're fingerprinted at a higher rate, too.)

Secondly, your side already put white men front-and-center with your tale about wh***y gunning down an innocent black kid who had his hands up (which wasn't true). You ignored every rule of evidence to push that narrative-of-convenience, and now you would like to go back to your Whitey-bashing by shifting focus to a disparity in arrest warrants.

(It's fair to point out that heavily Democratic, highly educated Minneapolis - where I live - also has a very bad record [1], as does our demographically-similar sister city [2]. That isn't good election year politics, though.)

Thirdly, you and the educratic left have zero credibility on racial issues while you hold young people's futures hostage to college entrance tests that are known to favor kids whose families can afford tutoring (read: suburban whites). You didn't kill Jim Crow. You gave him an honorary Ph.D and a department chairmanship.

Fourth, by definition you cannot have a discussion about whether people are being treated equally under the law if it's limited to just one area of law.

Fifth, what I pointed to was ten times worse and has been going on nationally (not just in the South) since before the Civil Rights Movement. Get a grip.

You seem to be making some unsupported claims about my political position. I'm only slightly left-of-centre, and I don't endorse most of the policies and/or views you credit me with (though I would be interested in knowing how you think college admissions should work to be completely meritocratic. Standardised tests seem a better idea than interviews, buy-ins, or a lottery).

Like I said in my post that you quoted, and like Dox said in his post, this isn't primarily about inequality. It's about an incredibly corrupt police force who do all kinds of sh***y things. If you want to make a thread about how men have it worse under the legal system then by all means. Don't start playing Oppression Olympics.